Labs & Facilities

Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety

The mission of the Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety (CHEPS) is to improve the safety and quality of healthcare through a multi-disciplinary, systems engineering-based approach. The center brings together specialists in engineering, medicine, public health, nursing, and more to tackle real-world problems in hospitals and clinics. Hands-on projects within and outside the university have immediate and measurable impacts. CHEPS also seeks to inform engineers and health professionals about opportunities to improve healthcare with engineering solutions and keep the broader community abreast of advances in healthcare engineering and patient safety.

Center for Ergonomics

The Center for Ergonomics (C4E) operates within the UM Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering in the College of Engineering. C4E represents one of the largest and best-known research programs in ergonomics and safety in the country, with a long-standing history and distinguished record of work in the areas of cognitive ergonomics, biomechanics and work physiology and safety. C4E also provides instruction, both to graduate students in various departments across campus, as well as professional ergonomists, engineers, and designers in private industry through our continuing education courses. C4E has developed and disseminates a number of ergonomics software tools that are in use by ergonomist, engineers, and researchers at over 2000 U.S. and international sites (3D Static Strength Prediction Program (3D SSPP)) which predicts static strength requirements for tasks such as lifts, presses, pushes, and pulls, and The Energy Expenditure Prediction Program™ (EEPP) which helps estimate energy expenditure rates for materials handling tasks). Students, research scientists, and research sponsors are drawn to the Center because of its faculty who are experts in a broad range of topics in Cognitive and Physical Ergonomics and because of the Center’s extensive resources – state-of-the-art laboratories, test equipment, expert staff, and computer systems and simulations.

The mission of the Center for Ergonomics is to make workplaces and organizations safe, efficient, productive and enjoyable. We are dedicated to gaining and sharing a better understanding of how tools, technologies and work practices affect health and performance and how they can be improved through human-centered design. Our research also advances basic knowledge about people’s psychological and physical abilities and limitations. Being part of the University of Michigan with over 250 degree programs uniquely qualifies us to take a systems-oriented and multi-disciplinary approach to engineering and design, combining cognitive, physical and organizational ergonomics and collaborating with experts in related disciplines.